Practitioner Research in a Japanese University Context: Facilitating Teacher Development

The chapters in this book are based on presentations made at the first three Nanzan Language Education Seminars, an annual event which has been taking place at a private Catholic university in central Japan since 2017. In this introductory chapter I would like to discuss the motivations behind initiation of the seminar, and subsequently the book; namely, to support working language teachers in conducting and sharing research. I will discuss the reasons why teachers should investigate their own practice, and some of the obstacles they face in doing so (in particular, in the Japanese university context). All readers are welcome, of course, but the book is targeted at two particular groups.
Firstly, I hope that classroom teachers will be able to try out some of the teaching activities and methods described in this book. The indirect message we also want to convey, though, is that all classroom practitioners should investigate ‘puzzles’ which arise as they teach. If asked, I believe that most (if not all) of the authors would tell us that writing and publishing their chapter was less important than attempting to solve their personal puzzles, and developing themselves as teachers. If you are reading this, and you want to better understand something about your own practice, then we would urge you to do so.